Long time ago again.
It’s not that nothing happens, it’s just that if I have no new pictures I think there’s too much text to read, but anyway. Here’s some of the things that happened since last time.

Lost I
This is not about Pandora. This is about our cat Odin
Saturday two weeks ago as we came home from Pandora’s training, the cat came jumping from the stairs. As he landed he uttered at meow in pain.
I took a look at him and saw his little foot bend in an awkward way.
We called the vet immediately.
First he thought it was an infected bite. But as the cat had no fever and there was no matter in the swollen paw, we decided to take an x-ray of the paw.
And sadly, three of the four bones in his paw was broken.
Put to sleep, he was wrapped like a spring roll on his front leg.
He woke up to a leg twice the normal size, and he was offended!
Anyway, now we had to nurse the cat indoor for five weeks. He would hate that, and we would feel terrible every time he begged to come out.
This was Saturday.
Sunday morning as we woke up, he had managed to break out of the cat flap. We thought it was sealed but it turned out no to be.
I cannot describe the worries we had.
A three legged cat in the rainy cold. He wouldn’t be able to escape hunting dogs or climb trees.
We spend all Sunday calling, calling and calling.
In the evening he still hadn’t returned.
I hoped he would come back during the night.
He didn’t!
Monday at work I made some flyers with ‘Missing cat’ on it.
As we came home from work, Odin still had not returned.
We went out and put the ‘missing cat’ flyer in all the post boxes in the neighbourhood.
And we called again a million hoping to get his attention.
Late in the evening I had this awful vision of him falling into the stream next to the house. A three legged cat with no chance of getting himself up again.
We went for another walk in the dark. I mean the DARK darkness. Crossing fields of mud, watery meadows following the stream a mile in both directions. Pandora tried to help, but she didn’t look like she had any lead at all.
No Odin, no reaction.
That night I looked over the meadow behind the house, sending all my thoughts to Odin. Begging him to come home.
I was sure that if he did not return that night, he would never come back home.

In the middle of the night I heard the cat flap.
5.29 in the morning our little cat came back home.
What a relief. It was sooo good to have him back.
Now he’s NOT let out before he is ready and well again.

Odin with broken paw

LOST II
Well, Monday the at returned.
Monday after, my husband Morten and I was sitting in the kitchen talking when Morten said:
– I think I’ll go look for Pandora.
She had been out for 20 minutes, but she was wearing her leash which is normally enough to make her stay.
Morten came back:
– You better come along. Pandora is not in the garden.

I didn’t worry too much.
Though she had never jumped the fence wearing her leash before, she normally just go to the meadow behind the house or run to the nearest neighbour who has a charming black Labrador.
So I called. Confident that she would show up in seconds.
Minutes.
Hours?
She didn’t react to our calling. We ran up and down the street in bigger and bigger circles, looking into peoples gardens.
Every time I heard a child talk or cry or a dog bark, I got afraid that it could be Pandora stirring up stuff.
I really didn’t think she would bite anyone, but if a parent saw her ‘I kiss with my tounge’-attitude towards a small child they might misunderstand the situation.
Did I mention it was dark as coal? It’s late spring in Denmark and the sun set around 5 o’clock. Now it was 8.
After half an hour we really started to worry.
Pandora had never been lost this long. And we had no idea of where she could have gone.
The situation was so similar to the week before when we searched for Odin. The only difference was, that we feared that Pandora would bite some one in fear, get run over by a car or … fall into the stream.
If she fell into the stream, she would survive, but she might drift away as there is a lot of water in it right now.
After 45 minutes I called my father and asked him to come along together with his Labrador, Pandora’s daily playmate.
If she saw or heard him, she might return.
In the meantime I started to walk along the bloody stream again. Walking between wet, dark trees, falling in muddy car tracks and looking into the dark.
I just walk. Without my phone and only a small flashlight.
At a certain time I heard dog bark.
I feared perhaps Pandora could be the reason, so I followed the sound. As I came closer, no one barked anymore.
I went down to a small cabin thinking she wouldn’t be there, but if I didn’t search it, I would probably think about it the rest of the night.
Half a mile from home I stood looking down the stream and I suddenly heard a bark that sounded like Pandora.
– Bark, Pandora, I shouted, but as you might know reading this blog, the girl has NO IDEA of what ‘bark’ means.
No reaction.
I wondered if I should go IN THE stream or find another way to follow the sound.
I decided to take the road.
I walked along a wooden fence, turned left at the end of the road and walked a little longer.
Then I heard voices. People talking.
And see: In a driveway my STUPID, AWFULL, TERRIFYING, DAMNED, ASHO… dog was tied to a rail.
I don’t have to tell how worried we’d been and how much I thanked the people who had caught her. They had just called the police to hear if Pandora was missing.
The reason for escaping:
Well these people had an old black Labrador. He had run off earlier in the day and had returned home together with Pandora.
So he might have been at our house and lured Pandora with him.
A nice guy drove us home. Pandora had been running almost a mile (1,5 km) away from home.
And when Morten saw her he was so happy. All the nervousness we had felt.

Unfortunately yesterdays morning as we should go to work, the Labrador stood in our entrance. We took him in the car and drove him home.
But as long as he is out there, Pandora will not be able to be alone in our garden. Not even with her leash on. She has to be tied to something.

A little Pandora art

Trials
The Saturday before the ‘big escape’ Pandora went to her first obedience test ever.
This was just a test-test to try it. More for the humans than for the dogs.
At our course we haven’t yet learned all the exercises so in three of the test she didn’t get a very high score.
But she did her sit, lay down, find and forward rehearsals very well. And to my big surprise she did come when I called her in. That surprised us all.
She got 70 points out of 100. That brought her in the middle (11 of 22) which is actually very fine for her stubborn breed.
Her good friend Bandit got 85 point but he is so easy to teach things and he is 3 years old, cool calm and collected.
So all in all I think Pandora did well.